Jacques Doucet

From BR Bullpen

Jacques Doucet was the play-by-play voice of the Montreal Expos on French radio for almost the team's entire existence. Beginning as a translator for the Canadian Press, Doucet became a sportswriter for Montreal's La Presse daily newspaper, where he worked for ten years before being hired by the Expos. He served as a sometimes official scorer for the Expos while covering the team for La Presse during its first three seasons.

In 1972, Doucet was teamed with color commentator Claude Raymond. The pair worked together for thirteen seasons on radio broadcasts. He later worked in the radio booth with Pierre Arsenault, Rodger Brulotte and Marc Griffin. Doucet called Expos games until the team moved to Washington, DC in 2005. He is known for his distinctive bass voice, and a precise and descriptive use of French that was fundamental in popularizing French-language baseball terms.

After the Expos left town, Doucet worked for Encore Baseball Montreal, which was dedicated to keeping baseball alive in Quebec, and was the radio broadcaster for the home games of les Capitales de Québec. In 2012, he moved over to the new TVA Sports network as broadcaster for televised games of the Toronto Blue Jays, once again teaming up with Brulotte.

He is a member of SABR and has authored or co-authored a number of books on baseball, including the definitive history of the Expos co-written with Marc Robitaille; the first volume was published in 2009 and the second in 2011. He has been a finalist for the Hall of Fame's Ford Frick Award on a number of occasions since the Expos' departure forced him into semi-retirement. He was inducted in the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame in 2020, and had previously won its Jack Graney Award.

"Le baseball dans la langue française est une sorte de perle rare dont nous ne savons pas apprécier la valeur. Comme quoi, nous nous tenons pour acquis. Lors même que cela tient de l'exploit et du génie. L'américanité en beau français, ce n'est pas rien." (Baseball in French is a kind of precious gift whose value we don't fully appreciate. In fact, we take it as a given. When in fact it is an incredible feat of genius. To be American, but in French, that's quite something.) - Serge Bouchard, in "La voix de Monsieur Doucet", raving about Jacques Doucet's feat of creating a whole new language of baseball in French and making it sound perfectly natural.

Further Reading[edit]

  • Serge Bouchard: "La voix de Monsieur Doucet", in Marc Robitaille, ed.: Une vue du champ gauche, Les 400 coups, Saint-Laurent, QC, 2003, pp. 29-33. ISBN 2-89540-089-X
  • Jacques Doucet and Marc Robitaille: Mémoires d'un micro: Jacques Doucet, la voix d'un sport, Hurtubise, Montréal, QC, 2014. ISBN 978-2-89723-278-8